How to Find Us

The Wood County Genealogical Society Genealogy Research Center is housed at the Quitman Public Library, 202 E. Goode Street (Hwy 154), Quitman, Texas. The library is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every Tuesday through Friday excluding holidays.

If you care about The Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society (WCGSTX), Wood County, Texas itself, or have ancestors who called Wood County home, please join in helping us create a future for genealogy, genealogical research, and the heritage of this county.

The fact is that local genealogical societies like we have known all our lives are in a crisis period. Some are gone, some are struggling, some, like the WCGSTX, are still plugging along and doing okay but face an uncertain future. The reason is that the world as we have always known it has changed, is changing, and will look even more different in a few years.

There is a discussion about the impact of these normal and not unexpected changes going on in the larger genealogy community. It is one that needs serious consideration right here at home.

A genealogy thinker I have been following (thoughtfully) for a while now is one Marian Pierre-Louis. She has an online presence in many places, but I just finished reading from her blog, Marian’s Roots and Rambles, a two-part series on the paradigm shift in genealogy and its meaning. I would like to share two thoughts from it here and urge you to follow the highlighted links to read all she has to say.

I recommend reading part 2 first. It deals specifically with local genealogical societies and the two following thoughts come from it. Out of context, they might seem rather tame and obvious, but just follow this link and read her blog post in its entirety.

1. Societies have a lot to offer but they need to change with the times. They can not continue to offer services in an outdated manner when change is happening all around them. I am not going to give my money to a society who provides me with nothing.

2. Simply sending money to a society is not enough. Active participation and transformation is the answer.

Whatever your reaction to this, will you please join me in a discussion of the merits and ideas we might follow in deciding and directing our survival and our own future. At meetings, in response to this post, in emails, at chance meetings at the grocery store, on Facebook, on Genealogywise, at our activities and social gatherings, lets look for our future, decide what we want to be and become, and get busy on plans to get there.

Members Only

Extra Content for "members only" includes back issues of the WCGS Bulletin Newsletter, meeting minutes, treasurer's reports, and other special content at wcgstxarchives.wordpress.com/. Members are added to the site for access upon joining. If you have not been added, please email us at wcgstx@gmail.com.

Calendar of Events

Beginning in February 2013, the monthly Calendar-of-Events will be moved to a monthly blog post. To find the current month, type "Calendar-of-Events" (no quotation marks) in the search box at the top right of this page. To see the entire monthly events, you might need to click on the blog post Title; (example) WCGSTX February 2013 Calendar-of-Events.